Flickr brings much demanded updates to web interface and iOS app

Flickr has updated its web interface and released an updated version of its iOS app as it tries to reassert its relevance in a post-Instagram landscape. The refresh of the web interface sees the navigation bar at the top of the site get slimmer, to devote more page space to photos. The 'Explore' page has also been redesigned - taking on the full-width, large tiled design used in the 'My Contacts' page. Flickr has also updated its famously poor iOS app, adding processing filters and better discovery tools.

The app gains many of the basic features it has previously been missing, including the ability to zoom down to pixel level of your images. Discovery tools have also been added, including a 'Contacts' screen and the ability to see images in Groups. Beyond this, the app also adds the de rigueur processing filters in a Twitter-esque attempt to ween users off Instagram. More details of the app can be found over on Connect.dpreview.com.

It would certainly make the site more congenial. It's not uncommon to see two dozen almost identical photos of the same thing, as if the photographers had set their cameras on 'continuous' and then just uploaded all the results before even looking at them. I wonder if they ever do get around to evaluating and winnowing the stuff.

Yes, I do agree with this. It is disappointing to see several pictures of whatever it is you have searched for and then struggle to find the difference. Well, find some reason they are all there.

Perhaps some people do use Flickr to store everything. I just put up the few that have relevance as I have defined it :^)

Too bad there can't be some way to force a user to collapse multiple shots with the preferred image on top. Kinda like DAM software allows you to do. Even if Flickr had this feature as an option, it would help. I guess some people would use it.. Some wouldn't...

Pathetic! They still have "Embiggen" enabled by default in the Slideshow mode. Does anyone at Flickr even know anything about photography? If I upload a 900X600 photo, for example, and it's viewed in Slideshow mode, it's "embiggened" by default (stretched to fit across the entire screen). So, if someone has a 24" monitor, that 900X600 image is going to look like garbage (soft and mushy).

This is a major pet peeve with a number of Flickr users and I can't believe they still refuse to address it. I know there's Lightbox mode where the image is not "embiggened" but I still have to provide step-by-step directions to anyone I email a gallery to in order to explain how a slideshow in Lightbox mode works.

I was waiting for this so-called upgrade to come along with the hope that they would address this issue but obviously they have not done it.

Again, does anyone at Flickr even own a camera or upload photos to a website. Unbelievable!!!

900x600 isn't a photo. It's closer to a thumbnail. If you actually upload a photo -- you know, 5...20 megapixels or so -- then the default is exactly the right choice; because then it isn't embiggen, it's enshrinkify.

There are groups on flickr that use robots to dump images that don't exceed 1000 pixels on at least one axis (and even that is pretty minimal.)

But seriously... if you're uploading such tiny images, they're barely worth looking at in the first place.

Why not upload your original size and then you have control how large should Flickr display your photos. As of today if you are a Pro member, you can select 1024, 1600 or 2048 pixels on the longest side.